a blog about movies, books, and getting lost….

Tag Archives: george romero

Horror movies–particularly of the supernatural variety–are perpetual favorites around my household, but during the Halloween season we tend to watch even more of them. As a child and teenager, I cut my teeth on the genre. I loved fantasy, science fiction, and Westerns too, but it was horror that I connected with the strongest. What that says about me psychologically, well… don’t tell me what you think. It’ll just make me morbidly self-conscious.

The horror genre–more so than any other kind of movie, I think–tends to get judged by its worst examples. You mention that you love horror and immediately most people think slasher killers, serial killers, and so-called torture porn. You mention that you love supernatural fiction or movies, those same people are likely to nod their heads in solidarity when Repulsion, The Shining, and Black Sunday are named. That’s not to say that I’m not up for a great knife-wielding maniac picture like Psycho, Blood and Black Lace, or Tenebrae, but my taste runs more toward the weird, surreal, and unnerving than say, The Human Colostomy Bag or whatever gag-inducing picture is driving the kids wild these days.

This season we’ve been revisiting horror classics, movies we saw too many times earlier in our lives but haven’t viewed in ten years or so. Stuff like George A. Romero’s highly influential Night of the Living Dead and the equally trendsetting William Friedkin picture The Exorcist.

There’s no need to say much more about them. They’re true classics that have weathered the years and passing trends well. They’re scary, beautifully crafted in their own distinctive ways, and they linger in the imagination long after they end. They may not be my personal favorites, but there’s no arguing their mythic stature as the luxury models of the field and I do love them.

Below are two videos I put together. The Night of the Living Dead score is famously swiped from various music library sources. The music suite from The Exorcist is Lalo Schifrin’s rejected score. It’s great, but you can also hear why Friedkin went with using work from modern composers George Crumb and Krzystof Penderecki instead. Make sure to watch them with the lights out and in HD for the best picture quality.

I’ve long been a fan of John Wyndham’s apocalyptic science fiction novel Day of the Triffids. For such a ludicrous concept–giant carnivorous plants, possibly man-made, stalk the earth and leave humanity dead, wounded, or scrambling to fight them off–the book is a gripping read, mostly due to how Wyndham superbly delineates the power struggles between the different gangs of survivors in the waning twilight of civilization. The relatively mindless terror of the triffids is bad enough. But with the added pressure of argued, reasoned, collectivized tyranny enforced by a group of soldiers upon our protagonists, it’s difficult to decide what grim fate is worse.

Published in 1951, Wyndham’s novel has influenced everyone from George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead) to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland (28 Days Later), as well as spawning two direct screen adaptations. The first one was a 1962 version starring Howard Keel–sort of fun in a Saturday morning movie and cold cereal kind of way–and from what I can remember it’s not very faithful. The other version, made for British television back in the early 1980s, lacks the cinematic oomph! that the story demands, but its earnest acting and faithfulness to the source material make it essential viewing.

Here’s a clip from it:

Now, 57 years since its original publication, Wyndham’s monstrous veggies are getting a new chance at life with news that the BBC has commissioned a new mini-series from writer Patrick Harbinson (ER, Law & Order). The show won’t hit television screens until 2009, so if you’ve never read the book… you have plenty of time to rectify that.

I’m not sure if the majority of Americans truly understand how vibrant triffids are to the collective imagination of people hailing from England, Scotland, and Ireland. It’s sort of like the difference between Dr. Who in England (it’s part of the culture at large, not relegated to cult status) and Star Trek in the States (cult phenom). Triffids are part of the culture. Here in Ireland, hidden away in the wilds, I was more than amused hearing people toss out the word “triffid” to describe an overgrown plant or savage looking nettle. Thank the gods above and below that I haven’t seen any plant(s) actually move around in the jungle of weeds behind our cottage, but there is a rather large and intimidating looking beast of a plant nestled between the back door and the window that distresses me. The cat seems to like it, though, so I’m not completely ready to burn it down yet. But at the slightest sign of aggression… it’s broccoli.

You can read more about the allure of triffids and the perverse love of watching the end of the world in films here.